Songs of the week:
Cradles by Suburban
Counting Stars by Simply Three
Books of the week
1. Negotiations: A reader for writers – Judith Summerfield
2. Gilgit Baltistan Ka Urdu Adab – Halqa Arbab-e-Zoq
3. Musadiss-e-Hali – Khawaja Altaf Hussein Hali
If this is just not another entry in the diary of a senseless wanderer! What a journey it has been. What a great, great journey. Golden.
I remember playing my first and perhaps, if I remember correctly, only cricket match, on the Railway platform in Hafizabad. Kashif was still alive and he was actually the one pushing me to play. I was a loser at cricket … or any other physical game for that matter. I remember ‘Pa Faqa’. He had a respectable name: Rafeeq or something … I don’t know how Rafeeq became ‘Faqa’ and fossilized. I remember losing my third pencil in a single day. Mom made me trace literally my steps back to Faqe’s shop to find that pencil in the summer of 2005. I was scared. When I returned, empty-handed, she just handed me over the fifth pencil, new and sharp. I had lost four in a single … half day.
Then I completed my maths sum. And I remember Dad once beat the crap out of me (oh that was something lmao) because I was not memorizing my work ‘loud enough’. In the evening, he took just me to this big, clearly-out-of-our-budget restaurant. To prepare for the next beating I guess, lmao, who knows!
In 5th grade, I remember lying to mom about how I had lost my Social Studies book. I needed money to get that fancy electric bell for my new cycle. It would have taken me like a week’s pocket money to save for it! When I went to buy that, however, the last piece was gone. I don’t exactly remember now, what I did with that money, but clearly, I never returned it. And I faintly remember a book fair in Garrison APS Gujranwala, in the 5th grade too. Maybe that’s where the money went.
What a time it has been.
The first two weeks of 2022. Things out of reach becomes stuff we’ve done and dusted, dealt and over with. Forgotten and left behind because then there comes more fancy stuff to pursue. It never ends, does it, the run for a ‘better’ tomorrow! There is a danger looming over my head. I need to figure out how to deal with it. The name is ‘winter effing breaks’. As is usual, I don’t want to go home for 15 days. It’s not anyone’s fault, to be honest, but staying more than one day with mom and dad gives me a ton of insecurities and emotional exhaustion. I know the reason. It’s because of the generation gap. Dad still thinks that whenever I am on my laptop, I am playing games. Mom will see me smiling (and there’s just so much content on the internet to make one go lol). And whenever she sees me smiling, she thinks I am talking with a girl. Ironically, she still thinks girls make boys smile. Her innocence makes me smile!
Anyways, I have got to figure out a good excuse not to go home. And hey, I had my last paper yesterday. That sucked. I forgot a whole question’s answer in there, of 10 marks. I studied my best. PDFs and PPTs given by sir, I read them all. Then I watched videos on YouTube, and not of just some Indian YouTubers (not that there’s anything wrong with them, I think they are doing excellent philanthropy work, being a substitute teacher to a whole generation of us students). I watched actual conferences of the original people who gave these theories and stuff. There was a conference held in Germany, an hour-long video it was. I watched it all. Bad lighting, worse sound, but I watched it. I watched it all. And I made written notes and I studied until the day of the paper, 01:05 pm. My paper was at 01:30 pm. And well … it sucked.
Whatever. I am sure all this won’t go to waste. I’ll get the reward in some other form right? After all, you’ve got to believe in some form of supernatural justice system, don’t you?
That’s it. I am going to post on Instagram on Friday, Saturday and Sunday every week.
In the end, I want to say one thing, to myself, and if it helps you, well congrats. You will associate yourself with excellent job, and suddenly, you’re fired. No replacement in horizon. Suddenly, like really in a snap, someone dies. We are not even able to comprehend how-the-fuck-did-this-happen on that one phone call. But they aren’t there anymore. They’re dead, 6 feet under the ground, you get to bury them yourself. The crux of the matter is: Paradigm shifts are something that every human being undergoes in their life. I hope mine goes like it is going now, Alhamdulillah and turns even better. I hope yours come soon too, if it hasn’t come already. Being humans, anything positive, the sooner, the better. I love you. See you next week. Bbye.
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